With industry forecasts predicting that server and data center energy consumption will nearly double from 2006 to 2011 nationally, the U.S. EPA is encouraging organizations to improve data center energy efficiency.  To help organizations meet this goal, the EPA has announced updates to the energy efficiency requirements for a variety of Energy Star qualified products and equipment for data centers.

"All Energy Star labeled data center products will come with an associated Power and Performance Datasheet (PPDS) that lists product information and detailed test results," said EPA. "Energy Star recognizes that data center products are highly complex systems that require more than just a label to understand their energy performance. All data center products will be tested according to their specific Energy Star test procedure, the results of which will be reported in a standardized format in the PPDS."

In the update, EPA announced new spec process for Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), Data Center Storage, and Servers V2.0.  

>>Read the entire artilcle now  

>>Top 12 Ways To Decrease Energy Consumption of Your Data Center

Emerson's LEED Data Center | Discover the strategies and technologies Emerson employed to maximize efficiency, scalability and reliability in their state-of-the-art data center.

At any given moment, millions of financial transactions, e-mail, and online videos may be coursing through the circuitry of one of the massive computer server farms that have proliferated in the Internet age.  In Alfonso Ortega's thinking, it's a lot of hot air. He's not talking about spam.  

The Internet generates a huge amount of waste heat, said Ortega, a Villanova University professor of energy technology.  By some estimates, 3 percent of the nation's electricity is devoted to computer processing and data centers, enough to light up a couple of states. The cost of cooling the equipment nearly equals the cost of powering the computers that process the bits and bytes, said Ortega, who is also the college of engineering's associate dean for graduate studies and research.

"People started to pay attention when companies said, 'Wow, unbelievable, we're now eating up half of our costs just to keep this thing cool,' " he said.

Ortega's Villanova team, along with a consortium of four other universities and four area corporate partners, were recently awarded a five-year, $3.4 million grant by the National Science Foundation to study ways to improve energy usage at data centers. The effort is formally called the Industry/University Cooperative Research Center in Energy-Efficient Electronic Systems.  

DVL is one of the four area corporate partners, at the forefront of the data center industry research.

> Read The Full Philadelphia Inquirer Story Here

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Great Ideas To Design A Better Server Room

While increasing energy efficiency has been a growing initiative in data centers across the country, largely due to demands to “do more with less” in a challenging economy, an amalgamation of myths related to data center “greening” and a general lack of understanding of how to approach and achieve it has had a significant negative impact on the universal adoption of true “green IT” practices. 

Most data center managers have no direct visibility to the data center’s total energy consumption with respect to the IT and facilities infrastructure, especially when the data center/computer room is located in a mixed-use building. Fortunately, the emergence of Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solutions is driving a paradigm shift where the gap between IT and facility infrastructures is being bridged to offer a holistic use of resource utilization throughout the data center.

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DVL Data Center Design and Best Practice Guide

How To Effectively and Efficiently Design Cost Effective Rack Rows

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Stung by concerns that using Google is bad for the planet, the Internet search giant has revealed exactly how much electricity the company uses and how much greenhouse gases it produces in an effort to show its business model is environmentally friendly.

Experts say it's true: Watching a video on Google's Youtube site is indeed more energy-efficient than watching a DVD that had to be manufactured, packaged, shipped and purchased. 

> Read the BusinessWeek Google article now

Data Center power use didn't grow nearly as fast as predicted the past five years.  You can thank new data center designs and becoming cloud ready.

- Are you fully ready?  The types of stresses that a cloud initiative can place on your data center are changing as quickly as the definition of cloud computing itself.  

- Learn the best practices now.  With Avocent from Emerson Network Power, you have a proven set of hardware and software options that can help you improve efficiency, adapt quickly, manage power and connectivity, and ensure availability.

> Learn the steps to making your data center cloud ready.

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Microsoft Chose Emerson Network Power/Liebert/DVL As A Trusted Partner 

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Engaging with the MTC to envision, architect and prove potential solutions to your business challenges will help ensure that your organization can take full advantage of Microsoft and partner technologies. The MTC team is dedicated to helping you make your vision a reality.  Emerson Network Power is a Microsoft Partner.

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